Importance and Limitations of Rituals

Importance and Limitations of Rituals

In this present scenario spirituality is identified with Religiousness and because of this there is lot of confusions in the minds of the people where they are subjected to thousands of rituals in the name of Spirituality/Religion. People are now wasting their time, money and moreover faith on God due to such misconceptions about basic difference between Spirituality and Religiousness.

To put it in simple terms Religiousness acts as a foundation for a person who wants to pursue spiritual path in life. It’s like this we cannot directly go to graduation without finishing our schooling, similarly being religious and following rituals are like schooling and as the person proceeds further he will discard all these rituals and become Spiritual. Further a religious person usually ends up with spiritual life but a Spiritual is not religious/ ritualistic.

Religious process basically focuses on rituals, prayers and certain sacrifices (homa) etc, which are basically a tool to bring his restless mind at peace and to develop disciple. Moreover these practices are generally practiced for material benefits than spiritual benefit. On the other hand rituals lay a strong foundation for a spiritual life as it develops devotion in the mind of a person.

If we keenly observe the rituals that are being followed, you can see that each of them have certain benefits, so let us take some example below

Let us start with a basic ritual like fasting that is followed by many of us, this when we correlate with yoga, it follows the principles of Niyama (virtuous habits, behaviors and observances) and Yamas (Moral living). What are we trying to do in this ritual is that we are trying to take charge over the body and mind urges and there by try to control our mind, also at this time your thoughts are filled with thoughts of divine (as during fasting you are supposed think about the divine), the benefit of this is that you are taking charge of you mind and body by enforcing control over. You will realize that you are no longer a slave to your urges which have disastrous consequences. Again limitation is that only by fasting you cannot become spiritual and more over you should not punish your body by overdoing it. Fasting will not give you the required knowledge that you need for progressing further. But in the current world people are propagating false information’s saying that you fast on a Saturday and your problems will go away.

Another example for a ritual that we can take is for pujas/homas (Idol worship, daily prayers, homas etc). This method is a double edged sword as most of the people get stuck here and never go beyond this point in their life time. Though there is benefit by this method. This is not the final stage. It is this system that has become popular now and wrongly being projected as the ultimate solution to all problems of life. People are cheating others by charging exorbitant amount for these rituals by providing false promises to people saying all their problems will go away if one performs a particular homa or puja. They charge lakhs of rupees and have made situations worse than good for most. What we need to understand is that if a person is destined to suffer something in this life (prarabdha karma) he is bound to suffer/enjoy it. No ritual will work in this regard. But the people with vested interest have elevated these rituals as ultimate.

Contrary to the above opinion the benefits obtained from the above should also be considered now as they play a big role in our life and they help us prepare our-self for the path ahead. Pujas are important as it is here we try to establish a link with the divine. Here we see our-self and God as separate and devote our-self to the divine. When Pujas are done properly our ego reduces, disciple is established, devotion develops, love towards the divine increases and more importantly we can stop accruing new Karmas (Note through this only new karmas can be stopped but the existing karma which needs to be experienced cannot be undone). The reason why this not the ultimate path and is just the tool is that here we see God and our-self as two different beings; we are searching for a God outside which is dualistic in nature. We are giving an image to a God who is infinite; hence we are limiting our-self by giving a form to God who is Absolute existence, Absolute Consciousness and Absolute Bliss, this God is beyond Time and Space and we are trying to conceptualize this God within Time and Space, hence making the God limited (limiting our mind is the point here).

Hence once a person is firmly established in rituals and if his practice is genuine and yearns to progress the divine grace showers on that person and he starts moving into spiritual life, it is here that the person acquires spiritual knowledge (not ritualistic knowledge), by reading Upanishads, Gita and other scriptures which gives him knowledge of the Spirit, with divine grace a Guru will appear for a honest student and he will teach the path of spirituality and the ultimate knowledge saying “You are that”.